US, Russia plan hotline to prevent cyber war: report

April 27, 2012

A hotline between the United States and Russia designed to defuse misunderstandings that could trigger a nuclear conflict will likely expand to cover the potential risk of a cyber war, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Under a proposal being negotiated with Moscow, the digital sphere would be added to topics covered by the Washington-Moscow hotline, the Post wrote, citing US officials.

The hotline's official name is the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, which was set up in 1988 under president Ronald Reagan to allow Washington and Moscow to inform each other of missile tests or rocket launches that could be mistaken as hostile acts.

An agreement making the change could be ready within several weeks, the Post said.

The Pentagon declined to comment about the report when asked by AFP.

The proposal underscores the increasing importance of digital threats for government and military policy makers, with US officials issuing warnings that a cyber attack could paralyze water, power or other vital services.

The accord would mark the first time the United States and another government have sought to formally commit to reduce the danger of a cyber war, as part of an effort to render the digital realm "more stable," the paper said.

US intelligence agencies have pointed to Russia and China as the source of the most aggressive cyber espionage and hacking.

The famous "red phone," allowing for crisis communications between US and Russian heads of state, dates back decades and is not part of the Nuclear Reduction Center created under Reagan's presidency.

Cyber war, long considered by many experts within the defence establishment to be a significant threat, if not an ongoing one, may never take place according to Dr. Thomas Rid of Kings College London.

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7 comments

DONT use windows!They suck, i saw the programming it sucks, i can get in detail as to why, but even looking at their windows api header files... they suck.Use unix or an unix derived system. There are even several operating systems which are far more secure, linux provides a dozen kernel drivers that enhance security and you can program your own security on top of it.The solution is easy, role out a IT department that specialises in a secure OS, the government can create the depertmant (hint Hire me if you like).This IT team will go over all key points that are sensitive and need to be secured hospitals, government websites etc.

Actually, linux is getting hit hard lately, and it will only get worse for them as it becomes more mainstream.

Linux isn't "better" at security, it's less frequently targeted because fewer idiots use it. Malicious software writers want to target idiots who let the virus sit on their machines for as long as possible so they can create massive botnets with them.

FreeBSD is better at security. Windows is instantly crackable upon obtaining a public IP address. Windows defaults like auto-run seem designed to attract parasites. Linux/GNU is better by a magnitude. It's weakness is the third party software installed as binaries, often months old in a world where zero day exploits reign. Of course any idiot who downloads and runs arbitrary programs off the Internet is a perfect mark.

Regardless, it's getting to the point where I will browse everything in Virtualbox sandbox. With 8 cores and 16gb I practically have five computers in one anyway.

As you say kochevnik, the real problem is the users, not the software. I'm 30 and I've used windows since I was a child, every computer I've owned has been custom built by me and I have NEVER installed an antivirus/antimalware program on any of them and I have NEVER gotten a virus. It's not difficult to avoid these things if you are just a bit savvy about your usage habits.